July
2008
Empty
No barrel can hold two different drinks. If it is to contain wine, then the water must be poured out so that the barrel is quite empty. Therefore, if you wish to be filled with God and divine joy, then you must pour the creatures out of yourself. St Augustine says: ‘Pour out, so that you may be filled. Learn not to love in order that you may learn to love. turn away, so that you may be turned towards.’ In short, if anything is to be receptive and to receive, it must be empty.
Meister Eckhart, The Book of Divine Consolation, 2
June
2008
Too late
Too late I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Too late I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Confessions X, 27
June
2008
God seeks…
God seeks us, not what belongs to us
Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Sermon 42:1
January
2008
Overcoming
[Grace gave] a liberty … protected and made firm by the gift of perseverance, that this world should be overcome, this world in all its deep lovers, in all its terrors, in all its countless ways of going wrong.
Augustine, On Rebuke and Grace 12.35